Bay Area Professionals
Dr. Ethan Marshall is the young medical student on call the night Tessa Duran murders her husband for abusing her twelve-year-old-son, Rino. Ethan stays in the cubicle while the rape kit is performed and is surprised when the boy resorts to prayers instead of tears.
Despite compelling evidence, Tessa is sent to jail for life. To avoid placing Rino in foster care, their parish priest agrees to raise him. Ethan is touched by Rino’s plight and visits whenever possible, but the connection is broken when the priest and young boy leave the area months later.
Raised by the Dominicans in California, Rino considers joining the order until a romance blossoms with a fellow student. After much soul-searching, he turns his back on everything familiar, and chooses his orientation over his perceived vocation. Upon graduating dental hygiene school, Rino takes a job at the office of Scott Gregory and Robin Kennedy.
Seventeen years have passed since that horrible night in the emergency room. Forty-three-year-old Ethan is now a Dominant in search of a full-time submissive. Twenty-nine-year-old Rino is adrift, longing for someone or something to help him find the serenity he’s lost along the way. As they rekindle their friendship, they realize they might be perfect for each other.
Excerpt
Ethan was six hours into his twelve-hour shift and had already cast a broken leg, teased a shard of glass out of a bloody sclera, given several tetanus shots, and retrieved a broken cucumber out of some guy’s ass. He still couldn’t understand why people didn’t invest in a proper, yet inexpensive dildo. It was certainly better to spend the money than endure the humiliation of having soggy vegetables pulled out in pieces. Ugh….
On the other hand, incidents such as that made up the majority of ER humor, and the darker and more bizarre the sexual blunders, the better. There was probably a grain of truth to the old myth of gay men sticking gerbils up their ass, and although Ethan batted for Team Homo, he didn’t hesitate to poke fun at the guys who had no common sense. Women were no better. They were equally as reckless with inserting foreign objects. The most memorable had been an electric toothbrush. In the heat of the moment, the head had popped off and gotten wedged high up in no-man’s-land. Ethan chuckled when he remembered the mortified look on Mrs. Ordinary-housewife’s face as she tried explaining her overzealous hygiene rituals.
That night, however, would leave a lasting impression on Ethan, and not in a good way. It had started out like any other emergency call, with the squawk of the ambulance announcing the arrival of another broken body. Ethan was part of the triage team gathered around the stretcher. A big bear of a man was lying faceup with his eyes closed. He must have been somewhere in his early forties and ex-military, judging from the buzz cut and the anchor tattoo on his left arm. His weathered skin had a greenish tinge, a harbinger of death. When they pulled the blanket aside, the man was nude, and Ethan zeroed in on the patient’s mutilated groin, which was still oozing blood. His brain shorted out when he realized someone had gouged out the man’s penis and left a gaping hole. He looked at his chief resident in shock, and the guy simply shook his head, silently telling Ethan the injury was fatal, and to suck it up and act like a professional instead of doubling over and clutching his own genitals in sympathy.
After they determined the guy was dead, all eyes turned toward the woman and young boy who’d accompanied the victim in the ambulance. Ethan could see the kid was in shock himself, visibly shaking and as white as the sheet they’d used to cover the body. Although the same height as his companion, he couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. His chubby cheeks and lack of facial hair led Ethan to surmise that the boy had barely started puberty. The woman had an arm draped over his shoulder and glared at everyone in the room. Her blouse and jeans were spattered with blood, and when one of the policemen began moving toward her, she pulled out a bloody knife from her waistband, presumably the one she’d used to castrate the victim, holding it in front of her. It was a Bowie knife, similar to one Ethan’s dad used to skin deer and rabbits. Suddenly, the crowd seemed to realize she could turn this weapon on them. Someone yelled knife, and all hell broke loose. Cops swarmed the small cubicle, and guns were pulled from holsters.
“Stay away,” she screamed. “Don’t come near us.”
The young boy pressed closer to her and mumbled something in a low voice.
“No,” she said stridently. “No one’s taking you away.”
“Ma’am, put down your weapon,” one of the cops ordered. “You’re surrounded.”
“That bastard raped my boy and deserved to die,” she said. “You can’t punish me for protecting my child.”
“If that’s true,” the cop replied in a gentler tone, “we have to follow procedure and check him out.”
“No,” the kid cried out. “Don’t touch me!”
“It’s protocol, son,” the cop responded. “A doctor will examine you to determine the extent of the assault. This will help your mother if the case goes to trial.”
“No!”
The kid was in tears and Ethan wanted to do something to help, but like everyone else in the room, he was too intimidated by the nasty-looking blade that glinted under the harsh fluorescent lights.
“Call Father Santos,” the woman said.
“Who is he?” the policeman asked.
“My confessor. You can find him at St. Laurence Catholic Church in Sugar Land.”
“It might take a while for him to get here.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped. “No one touches us until he arrives.”
The cops put their heads together to confer on this bizarre request, and eventually, Ethan saw one of them take off. The other two stood guard over the exit to make sure the mother and son didn’t leave the building. As if these people were going anywhere, he thought ruefully. The kid was a wreck, collapsing in his mother’s arms and sobbing on her shoulder. She wasn’t faring any better. As time passed, the rage that had led her to such a desperate act to protect her boy was clearly dissipating, and the reality of her situation was finally dawning on her. She began to weep silently, and she dropped the knife, looking at it in distaste. Surprisingly, no one made a move to take her away. Child abuse was the one thing that united law enforcement and caregivers. Nobody wanted to see an innocent child suffer, especially at the hands of a family member, and if they had been shocked earlier by the woman’s choice of revenge, they were more inclined to give her a pass now that she’d explained her side of the story. A rape kit would back up her allegations, but until the examination was accomplished, it was her word against the law of the land.
An hour passed before the cop returned with a priest. He looked Asian, no doubt chosen by the woman to be her champion because she spoke to him in a different language when he walked in and took in the scene. Father Santos was wearing an old-fashioned black cassock and held a small bible and string of rosary beads in his hands. As soon as he got closer, Tessa knelt down and bowed her head. He touched her gently and asked her to rise.
They spoke quietly, and after several minutes, the priest turned toward the police.
“Tessa has informed me that her late husband has been physically abusive to her boy for years. Unfortunately, he took it to another level last night, and when she caught him in the act, she lost her head.”
“I’ll say,” the cop replied sardonically. “That’s not the only thing lost in the altercation.”
“It is unfortunate,” Father Santos replied grimly, “but perhaps in this case, final judgment should be left in God’s hands. He knows the motive behind this terrible incident, and only God can forgive.”
“Unfortunately, God won’t be on the jury, and in the state of Texas, this woman is bound to fry if she can’t prove her kid was raped. Like it or not, we have to examine the boy.”
“Is that really necessary?” the priest asked, shielding the boy behind his body. “Surely Rino has suffered enough.”
“Is that his name?” the cop asked. “Rino?”
“Yes,” Father Santos replied. “And this is his mother, Tessa.”
“I’m sorry, kid, but if you want your mom to survive this with the least amount of collateral damage, you have to let us collect the pertinent data to prove you were raped.”
“How?” Rino asked in a small voice.
“A couple of doctors will take off your clothes over a large sheet of paper. This is so they can collect any evidence that falls off your shirt or pants while they’re being removed. Then they’ll bag everything to keep it safe until a more thorough examination of the fabric is performed. They’ll take pictures if they see any bruising, comb the hair on your head and pubic area to use for comparison purposes when analyzing the samples obtained from the deceased. Then they’ll check under your fingernails for skin samples in case you scratched your assailant. They’ll use cotton swabs in your mouth, rectum, and the tip of your penis and then smear them on a glass slide for analysis. We’ll get your father’s DNA and check it against yours. If any of his stuff shows up in the wrong places, then we’ll know your mother is telling the truth.”
“He’s not my father,” Rino said angrily. “And why would we lie about something this horrible? We would never make it up! This is so fucked….”
His eyes were welling with tears again, and Ethan had to stop from taking the kid in his arms. There was something profoundly disturbing about the prospect of a sexual examination on someone so young and fragile.
The cop raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head regretfully. “We can’t take this at face value, son. Without evidence, your mother could be facing the death penalty.”
“Okay,” Rino said in a whisper. “Let’s get it over with.”
Stay tuned for the cover reveal of book five in this BDSM series which will be featured on October 16 at On Top Down Under Book Reviews. There will be an exclusive excerpt and an Amazon gift card giveaway.
You can purchase Forged in Trust at Dreamspinner Press or any other major retailer.
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